Hannon to run for state Senate

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Longtime Tinley Park Trustee Greg Hannon announces run for 19th District state Senate seat Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2011, in Tinley Park, Ill. | Matthew Bruce~For Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 6, 2012 9:37AM

Greg Hannon made it official.

The longtime Tinley Park village trustee kicked off his run for the 19th District state senate seat, announcing his candidacy during a press conference at village hall Tuesday night.

Hannon, a 24-year trustee, looks to take over for the district’s current state Sen. Maggie Crotty (D-Oak Forest), who announced last week that she won’t seek re-election in the March 20 Democratic primary race. She plans to step down at the end of her term in January 2013.

“It’s going to be a tough challenge for (Hannon) and the whole Legislature to turn Illinois around, but I’ve seen him in action,” Tinley Park Trustee Brian Maher said in introducing Hannon. “I think he’s just the kind of person that Springfield needs, because we don’t need wallflowers.”

Hannon touted his role in helping to build Tinley Park into one of the top-ranked municipalities in the nation, with a AA+ bond rating. He said that experience would serve him well in the senate to help balance the state’s books.

“I think that’s what I bring to Springfield,” he said. “It’s the hard question: Where do we get the money? We need to find fiscally responsible ways of doing things. If that means tightening the belt — you’ve heard everybody talk about it, but nobody seems to want to do it.”

It was Illinois’ budget problems in recent years and concerns over the state’s fiscal mismanagement that prompted Hannon to contemplate a foray into state politics. After seeing Illinois raise its income tax and business tax last year, Hannon began to want to throw his hat into the ring.

“The last couple of years, it has started to affect Tinley Park,” he said. “I finally said, ‘You know what, I’m madder than hell, I’ve got 24 years of experience dealing with these types of things. Someone needs to go down to Springfield.’ And hopefully a lot of new legislators that are going down there will have my same thoughts and say we have to just change what we’re doing.”

Hannon said he began meeting with District 19 political leaders to hear their concerns.

He called for pension reform, saying the state is $62 billion behind on its payments to five pension funds. He said he will campaign for more job creation and more funding for education.

“I’d be fooling myself if I said I was going there and change the world. That’s not going to happen,” Hannon said. “But I think that with a lot of new legislators potentially going down there, we’ll be able to change things. And change is going to take time.”